Ukrainian Revolution
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Russian troops with armoured vehicles stormed the Belbek airbase outside
Sevastopol on Saturday, taking the base's commander Yuliy Mamchur
prisoner. At least one Ukrainian soldier and a journalist were injured,
with the latter's video footage of the aggression destroyed by
pro-Russian vigilantes. Mamchur's wife later told ABC News that Mamchur
had managed to phone her and say that he had been arrested, and was
being taken to the military prison in Sevastopol.
Yuliy Mamchurbecame wildly known both in Ukraine and beyond back at the
beginning of the Russian invasion when the Kremlin was still denying
that the troops crowding into the Crimea were Russian. On March 3, he
led his men, unarmed, towards the main part of the airbase which had
been seized by heavily armed Russian troops. They were demanding that
the airbase be freed and their unit able to resume work. The situation,
seen herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmhRG6-6BgQwas enormously tense
with the rifle-brandishing Russian soldiers obviously stressed. They
fired warning shots into the air and at the men's legs, but the soldiers
did not stop.
Mamchur's bravery, seen as he halted his soldiers but kept walking
himself, made him a hero for very many Ukrainians. He remains so, but
the events on Saturday have highlighted the hopeless situation Ukrainian
soldiers military who have refused to surrender and break their oath of
allegiance are in and the profound frustration they are experiencing.
The Russian soldiers issued an ultimatum before storming that the
Ukrainians leave the unit. Mamchur's response was that he could not
order his men to do so without the relevant instructions from Kyiv which
he had not received. The occupying troops reportedly retorted that his
leadership was far away, and that he would cause his men's death. It was
at this point that the video camera filming the negotiations between
Mamchur and the Russians was deliberately
damaged.http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1395535549
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